Nick Tavares: Bettman setting course for NHL lockout

Sunday

Sep 9, 2012 at 12:01 AM

As summer turns to fall, this should be a time when NHL teams across the continent begin gearing up for training camp, a time for fans to start fantasizing about skates and sticks and the long journey to the Stanley Cup.

Nick Tavares

As summer turns to fall, this should be a time when NHL teams across the continent begin gearing up for training camp, a time for fans to start fantasizing about skates and sticks and the long journey to the Stanley Cup.

Thankfully, Commissioner Gary Bettman is here to quash all those silly joys, and instead is busy orchestrating another abbreviated hockey season, if we're lucky.

The labor agreement between the league and the players is up, and thanks to the commissioner, it has become another strained process that is threatening the season, not even 10 years removed from a lost season that could have killed hockey in this country. And it's all completely pointless, to the point of resembling madness.

During the 2004-05 lockout, Bettman and the owners were dealing with an NHL Players' Association in disarray, and with the NHL facing real revenue losses the previous season, he was in a position to assert his power. He wanted cost certainty in an effort to make all 30 teams solvent, even those struggling in forced markets like Phoenix and Southern Florida. How that shook out for the players was secondary, and the negotiations reflected that.

In the end, Bettman got the salary cap he wanted, maximizing player income at 57 percent of revenues plus a 24 percent rollback on all existing contracts. It was a coup for the owners, and all it cost them was a season and the faith of the fans.

In the years since, the NHL has seen a rebirth the likes of which seemed inconceivable in the winter of 2006. With the success of traditional teams in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago in Boston, an influx of exciting and marketable players and the unqualified triumph of the Winter Classic each New Year's Day, the league is enjoying a tremendous run.

This has led to an attendance boost among most teams, a successful relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers to hockey-mad Winnipeg and a TV deal with NBC that has become a boon for both the network and the league. That salary cap, which began at $39.5 million at the outset of the contract, ballooned to $70.2 million for the theoretical 2012-13 season, an indication that revenues have vaulted and the league, minus a poorly situated team or two, is the healthiest it has ever been.

And this is where we find a tone-deaf Bettman looking to pounce.

After declaring a Sept. 15 deadline, his first offer to the players was nothing more than a joke and an attempt to ensure a lockout. Cutting the players' share from 57 percent of revenue to 43 percent, bumping unrestricted free agency from age 27 to 31, limiting contract lengths and limiting arbitration rights were just some of the highlights.

This time around, the NHL is looking at a union ready for a fight and much less willing to be bullied. Donald Fehr, the former head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, is leading talks for the players, and Bettman is not likely to push him around as easily. This is the union head who lead the players into baseball's 1994 strike, cancelling the World Series, and staved off drug testing in baseball for more than a decade.

If Bettman is more interested in showing the players who's boss, he has picked the wrong executive in Fehr. The next offer from the owners lessened the hit in the cap to a 50/50 split, or 46 percent for the players, depending on who's telling the story.

This was never going to be an easy negotiation, but from the outset, Bettman has worked as a mercenary for the owners, attempting to grab a bigger piece of the biggest pie the league has ever seen. Is that his right? Of course. It could even be argued that it's his job. But Bettman also has a duty to bargain in good faith with the players, and thus far, he's failed.

In six days, that Sept. 15 deadline will be upon us. At that point, we'll learn how much Bettman really values the NHL season.

Nick Tavares' column appears Sundays in The Standard-Times and at SouthCoastToday.com. He can be reached at 508-979-4520 and at ntavares@s-t.com.